istoryworld
Events relating to america
William Wyler directs Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, a beguiling comedy about a princess's romance in Rome
US citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sent to the electric chair as convicted spies
US golfer Ben Hogan wins the US Open, the US Masters and the British Open in a single year
Within the year Marilyn Monroe stars in Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire
Arthur Miller's play The Crucible uses the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for the contemporary paranoia of McCarthyism
Merce Cunningham forms his own company of dancers, initially at Black Mountain College in North Carolina
Baseball star Joe Dimaggio marries Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage lasts only a year
Senator McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt is broadcast live for several weeks on US television
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb', is investigated for Communist sympathies and his security clearance is withdrawn
The term Domino Theory is coined to reflect President Eisenhower's view of how states might fall to Communism
Bill Haley & His Comets record Rock Around the Clock, providing an early classic of US rock and roll
Alfredo Stroessner seizes power in Paraguay, introducing three decades of repressive dictatorship
The US Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in US schools is illegal
George Cukor directs Judy Garland and James Mason in A Star Is Born
An invasion of Guatemala from Honduras, with CIA support, brings to power a right-wing military junta
US truck driver Elvis Presley makes his first commercial recordings, for Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee
US choreographer Paul Taylor begins a long and fruitful collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg as his set designer
The country's president, Getúlio Vargas, commits suicide when the army in Brazil demands his resignation
Elia Kazan directs James Dean in East of Eden
Richard Daley begins a powerful and often unscrupulous reign of 22 years as mayor of Chicago
Canadian pianist Glenn Gould wins international fame with his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations
Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens on Broadway
Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis forms his own quintet, extending it in 1958 to a sextet
Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American is set in contemporary Vietnam and foresees troubles ahead
The first Disneyland opens in California, an event watched on television by 90 million Americans
